Roll bar equipment is often provided for the protection of the vehicle passengers in vehicles without a protective roof. In normal state, the roll bar should be reeled in order to minimize the wind resistance and the driving noise. On the other hand, in case of danger, the roll bar must be reeled out quickly in order to prevent the driver from being crushed by the rolling vehicle.
A number of solutions exist for this. For instance, it is known to reel out one bar each behind the front seats of the vehicle in order to provide protection for the vehicle passengers in case the vehicle rolls. This previously available bar is meant particularly for the protection in relatively heavy vehicles. Therefore, a reeled out bar is partially or completely reeled back into its original position by engine power after the danger condition is over. Such a construction is comparatively complicated and expensive.
Therefore, there have been considerations, particularly for the use of a roll bar in smaller vehicles, to design the former to be relatively light, so that it may be reeled out sufficiently quickly with comparatively low elastic force due to its low inertia. This low resilience of the spring, on the other hand, makes it possible to push the bar manually back into its original position once the danger is parted, thereby preventing an expensive conveyance by motor. It has been suggested to keep the side legs of a roll bar in standpipes which are attached to a housing and whose diameters are significantly smaller than those of the bar legs, and which align with the bar legs. In order to have an improved inner guide when the bar is reeled out, a cylinder shaped support is provided on the upper end of a stationary housing which is attached to the housing by a narrow support shoulder. Because the attachment of the support cylinder is located on the outside of the bar leg, but the support itself engages on the inner surface of the bar leg, the bar leg itself is equipped with slits so that it may glide over the bar support. Such slits are not only expensive to produce, but they also reduce the rigidity of the bar leg, particularly as it relates to lateral shear forces.
The present invention, however, is based on a roll bar equipment with the underlying task to further simplify the suggested system in order to make such roll bar equipment applicable for smaller vehicles as well.
The objects of the present invention are accomplished by using pipes with a closed surface area exclusively for the inner guide of the bar legs, whose end which faces away from the bar is attached on the housing. This makes it possible to do without the above described slits in the bar legs. At the same time, the comparatively long standpipes provide a good strengthening in the guide area of the bar legs. Practical applications have shown that it is possible to operate with such an inner guide which, according to its type, is supported by an outer guide, particularly on the bar-side end of the housing, in previously known fashion.
In addition to cylindrical cross sections for the bar legs and the standpipes oval or square cross sections may be selected for stability reasons.
In order to prevent that in the case of a crash the latch element which is movable in connection with the bar may yield in relation to the handle, and in order to strengthen the support effect of the bar in the case of a crash, a detent pawl engages the latch element. The profile of the latch opening is selected such that while the detent pawl may perform the required swivel motion, a swivel motion of the latch element will definitely be prevented by the abutment on the inner surface of the latch opening.
Because the turning position of the latch element is unimportant for its ability to be operated, such a latch element is very easily mounted.
The production of the latch element is achieved particularly cost-efficiently by using a simple steel cylinder eliminating the need for metal-cutting processing.
The rotation symmetrical shape of the latch arbor, however, also permits processing by lathing. In order to better fixate the location of the legs in relation to each other, the open ends of the bar legs preferably are enclosed by respective openings in the connecting plate and are thereby stopped against each other.
An additional bracing between the bar legs is achieved by arranging the connecting plate into first and second angled portions wherein said second angled portion is parallel to the bar. This prevents that the connecting plate which is preferably attached on the lower end of the bar legs may be bent by a moment of torsion on the bar legs.
The manual activation of the detent pawl serve to return the bar into its original position after termination of the reeled out position of the roll bar, and therefore of the danger situation for the vehicle. This makes it possible to manually cancel the locked condition of the roll bar equipment and to manually push the roll bar into its original position. It is obvious that with these measures significant savings may be achieved compared to the known bars which are moved by a motor.
A particularly simple construction to support the bar in its original position is provided wherein a swivel hook is mounted in a magnetic support on the guide block to hold the bar in its original position.
A support fork is provided for threading into a support installation by its swivel motion without particular tolerance compensation which allows it to compensate existing location divergences of the two parts to be connected which may have been caused by faulty mounting or manufacturing differences. To the extent that the support fork and the fork support are made from plastic materials, it is sufficient that the support pin itself is a steel pin, in order to drastically reduce wear in the above mentioned support equipment. Using the dip ensures that the material on the basis leg of the roll bar is not weakened by attaching the fork support and therefore will retain the resistance required for the crash case.
The support equipment may be arranged particularly compact in the guide block by applying the asymmetrical construction of the fork support. In addition, the asymmetrical construction of the fork support permits the asymmetrical arrangement of the support equipment in the guide block so that the latch installation and the support equipment in the guide block may be located on a level which permits a compact construction.
The present invention also permits the tolerance of the guide boring in the guide block to be very large by additionally improving the elasticity of the guidance in relation to the bar. Therefore, the elastic guide bushing is preferably constructed such that the forces pressing on the surface area of the bar legs in case of a crash are distributed as widely as possible and the stress concentration is reduced to a minimum so that no shearing off or bending of the legs occurs.
Installation and mounting of the roll bar equipment are simplified by using the housing metal which consists of an essentially U-shaped frame whose closed end is strengthened by a cover plate while the open ends of the U-shaped housing blocks are connected together via the guide block. On the frame itself mounting rails may be attached or made in one piece from the housing sheet.
The above described measures essentially result in a cassette which is open on one side and which is easily installed. In addition, the base leg of the housing sheet limits the path of the connecting plate, while, in order to obtain a larger support surface of the two parts to each other, openings are provided in the housing which correspond to respective projections on the connecting plate, and the projections then enter the respective openings uninhibited, thereby permitting the abutment of the two plates against each other.